NVIDIA launches a cheap version of the GTX 1060, but is it worthy?

3GB NVIDIA GTX 1060 specs and price

U.S. – The EVGA GeForce GTX 1060 graphic card from NVIDIACorporation (NASDAQ: NVDA) remains one of the only affordable Nvidia graphics cards around. Now, the company introduced an even cheaper version of the GPU with half the memory size.

The new version of the GTX 1060 comes with 3 GB of onboard memory RAM, whereas the regular version packs 6 GB. The graphic card also disables one streaming multiprocessors of the original model, so it’s left with nine GP106 graphical processing unit (GPUs).

With one processor less, the CUDA cores are down to 1152ghz from 1280ghz. The changes were necessary to push the price from $250 to $200 and compete in the affordable market against the AMD Radeon RX 480.

6GB GTX 1060 specs and price

The original GTX 1060 entered the budget market with a price of $250. The piece packs 10 GP106 streaming multiprocessor, 1280 CUDA cores, and 6GB GDDR5 memory clocked at 8GB.

The affordable graphic card can handle 2016’s titles with the highest settings at 1080p with 2560X1440 display and an average of 60 frames per second.

As a Pascal-based GPU, the card boasts of all the new improvements Nvidia has to offer, including Fast Sync, GPU Boost 3.0 and fourth-generation delta color compression to reduce memory use.

PCWorld did some testing on the GPU with an Intel Core i7 gaming rig and found it could handle Tom Clancey’s The Division at 41.4 fps at 1440p or 59.4 fps at 1080p.

They tested the graphic with nine 2016’s games and discovered the 6GB GeForce 1060 outperformed AMD’s cheap alternative as well as older Maxwell-based Nvidia cards with higher specs.

On the downside, the card does not carry an SLI connector, so users cannot plug two GTX 1060 in the same PC.

3GB GTX 1060 vs 6GB GTX 1060 vs Radeon RX 480

PcWorld did the same test on the 3GB version and got 38.1 fps on The Division at 1440p and 53.7 fps at 1080p. Unlike the 6GB version, the performance dropped below AMD Radeon RX 480.

Overall, the RX 480 offers superior performance than Nvidia’s $200 rival for the same price and with more onboard memory. The RX 480 comes in two versions: a 4G model for $199 in the US; and an 8GB one for $239.

Newly released GTX 1060 reaches about 9 percent fewer fps than the 6GB version. Moreover, the GPU can’t handle the highest settings on games that require minimum 4GB onboard Ram on the graphic card.

For example, in “Rise of the Tomb Raider”, the 6GB GTX 1060 handles 84.69 fps at 1080p with the highest settings, while the new one drops down to 67.37 fps at maximum quality, even when it behaves almost the same on lower settings.